VMware, Inc. has announced that VMware NSX has achieved the Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2+ certification under the Common Criteria Evaluation and Certification Scheme. The certification validates that VMware NSX satisfies stringent government security standards and requirements for deployment. VMware NSX enables Federal departments and agencies, international governments and agencies, and other highly regulated industries and sectors to implement network virtualization to modernise data centers, integrate with public clouds and transform security.
“Governments globally are working to optimise their IT spend and increasingly focused on delivering more value using limited resources,” said Milin Desai, vice president of product management, Networking and Security Business Unit, VMware. “With VMware’s software- defined approach that includes VMware NSX, we can deliver greater efficiency and security for existing systems while enabling a modern infrastructure that is both cloud and new-app ready.”
Common Criteria is an internationally recognised standard (ISO-15408) that defines, validates, and assures security features and capabilities of IT security products. It is mutually recognised by 26 member nations, and often required by government procurement sales. Certification is achieved by following a thorough and rigorous evaluation methodology, with testing performed by a commercial Common Criteria Evaluation Facility under the oversight of the Certification Body. The Common Criteria certification acts as a seal of assurance for the federal government, its agencies, contractors and other organisations and assures that the product complies with strict security requirements specified within the designated level.
Government IT departments are faced with updating their wealth of legacy systems while in a risk-averse culture. In efforts to modernise existing systems, many IT departments are exploring efficient and secure virtual networks that reduce cyber-threat, improves operational efficiency and reduces disaster recovery time.
VMware NSX network virtualization platform delivers the operational model of a virtual machine for the network by abstracting networking and security services from the physical network infrastructure that they run on. Similar to virtual machines for virtualized compute, virtual networks can be programmatically provisioned and managed independent of the underlying network hardware. At its core, VMware NSX addresses security, automation and application continuity.
